CUDEI, N.M. — Outside the tribal chapter here near the San Juan River, Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye pointed to a stack of hay delivered by the Environmental Protection Agency and expressed disappointment.

“This was supposed to be here seven days ago,” he said Friday, about 30 miles south of the Colorado border. “This should have been here last week.”

Members of the tribe, which spans 27,600 square miles across three states, anxiously waited and watched as yellow-orange sludge streamed into their sacred San Juan River four days after the spill. Navajo Nation leadership has even coined a Navajo phrase for their response — and frustration — to the disaster, calling it Tó Łitso — Operation Yellow Water.

The calamity has sent a wide swath of the tribe, already suffering from serious economic depression, into further disarray. In Navajo country, where the land has long sought to quench its drought, people fear the Gold King Mine disaster near Silverton will have impacts for decades.

“They endangered our people,” Begaye said of the EPA.

The San Juan River remains closed in the Navajo Nation, and officials have warned farmers and ranchers against using its waters for crops or livestock. Irrigation wells are bone dry, and much of the tribal yield is either dying off or already dead.

Roy Etcitty stood Saturday before his ruined crops in Shiprock, N.M., and explained how the disaster is another example of why “us Indians don’t trust the government.” He hasn’t watered his fields since officials closed the San Juan, and his horses have been blocked from drinking its waters.

He said the calamity is just another in a long line of American Indian oppression.

In the days since the spill, Begaye has been among the most vocal in a growing chorus of politicians across the Southwest who have chastised the EPA for causing the disaster and its subsequent response.

He drove nearly 225 miles from his office in Window Rock, Ariz., to see the Gold King Mine first-hand and then posted a video on Facebook explaining in both Navajo and English what was happening at the site.

Begaye said he wants the EPA to remove all contaminated sediment from the San Juan River and expects the agency to pay for his tribe’s hardships and expansive emergency response. He met last week with EPA leader Gina McCarthy when she visited Durango and Farmington, N.M., to talk with responders and survey the damage.

“We wanted some solid commitments,” Begaye said of the meeting, “but we didn’t get that.”

The San Juan River flows for 215 miles through Navajo land, making it, by mileage, the most impacted of any contiguous community. Members of the tribe say the spill has left them facing financial ruin, spiritually broken and, through and through, angry.

Officials in the Navajo Nation have told members not to agree to any settlement claims from the EPA, which in the days after the spill released a form streamlining payouts to those impacted.

The tribe’s attorney general, Ethel Branch, said last week she feels the language is misleading and could bar future damage reimbursements in the years to come.

Branch has solicited an opinion from U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and the Department of Justice on the claim form’s legality and language. The EPA has repeatedly said it is not trying to bar future payouts.

Branch said she plans to sue the EPA, explaining how legal action has been “the solid message from the Navajo Nation.” An emergency has been declared, and tribal officials are petitioning for help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“The long-term effects, we just don’t know right now,” Jonathan Nez, the tribe’s vice president, said Friday as he traveled in a motorcade during a tour of impacted areas.

Nez says the EPA’s spill has reminded the Navajo people of previous contention with the federal government, particularly the cleanup of uranium pollution on their land.

“Over the years, we have never really received straight answers,” he said.

Steve Calanog, an EPA on-scene coordinator based in California, stressed that the agency is doing its best to mend and maintain its relationship with the Navajo Nation. Federal workers are delivering 100,000 gallons of water for agriculture to the tribe each day, the EPA says, and daily samples are being drawn at 11 San Juan River sites on tribal land to check contaminant levels.

“We have been working with the Navajo Nation for many, many years,” he said Friday during a media conference call. “We continue to work together through very difficult situations. We will get through this and continue to have an open and candid dialogue with them.”

The conversations on the reservation, however, suggest healing the still-open wounds of the Gold King disaster won’t be so easy.

At the Begaye Flea Market in Shiprock on Saturday morning, shoppers and vendors expressed their disgust for the EPA and hope the agency will be more cautious in the future.

“I’m not sure you really want to know what I think of the EPA,” Keith Dempsey said as he manned a booth at the market. “I don’t think people really understand the ramifications of what happened.”

Politics reporter. He has worked at The Denver Post since the summer of 2014, covering cops, courts, politics, environment, skiing and everything in between. He loves telling stories about Colorado's mountain towns and the Eastern Plains and wants to make sure our newspaper's great work extends into their communities.

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